2008 Surprises: Part 1

I know I said in the next two days or so, but I figured what the heck, I'll just type up half today and half tomorrow.

We have our 2007 Kansas', our 2006 Wake Forests, our 2006 Rices, and our 2005 UCF Knights. Those, I'm not even going to shoot for; leave it up to Phil Steele to find them. But, I'm going to try my best to take a peek at some good candidates at bouncing back for the 2008 campaign by conference. Going alphabetically, starting with the ACC:


ACC: NC State

That season went pretty much as expected, didn't it? NC State was flaky for the most part showing some growing pains. Also, they got very shaky play out of the QB position, the predicted trouble spot for the Wolfpack offense. The defense was average--nothing spectacular.

And? This is a team that could win seven or eight games for the 2008 season? Why not? O'Brien's disciplinarian style began sinking in as the season progressed and even though they closed out the year getting smashed by Wake Forest and Maryland, there was a nice four-game stretch that included wins against ECU, Miami, Virginia, and rival North Carolina. Really, all you can ask for in order to see improvement is better QB play. If Beck, Davis, or possibly even Mike Glennon can make fewer awful, game-changing mistakes, this team should find themselves in San Francisco or Nashville for the postseason.



Big East: Louisville

Even though Pitt is the more attractive pick for a Big East team to surprise (and I think they'll finish 7-5 in 2008), Louisville should see the most improvement. And maybe it would be record-wise, but this is a team that can win 8 or 9 games and some tweaking will be all that is needed.

First off, Kragthorpe isn't that bad of a head coach. Everybody knows how much flak he has received over the past few seasons and SSO was pretty tough on his defensive coaching. This was a team that suffered one of the most inexplicable defensive collapses in modern college football history against a downright anemic Middle Tennessee offense. That was one of the most stunning games I have ever seen.....Seriously. If there's any hope of Louisville returning to the postseason, it will start with some defensive work and the additions of Ron English and Ted Roof will solve that. Secondly, the other thing that they need to do is find a serviceable replacement for Brian Brohm. And that has already been taken care of. Hunter Cantwell has been waiting in the wings for a while now and this will be his time to shine. He's done a decent job filling in for Brohm while he was hurt, so don't expect there to be too much of a drop off offensively.



Big Ten: Minnesota

Ouch. (Tim Brewster) Note to Self: Don't do that again.

Head coaching debuts don't go much worse than what Minnesota had to go through. Not only did they go 1-11, but three of those eleven losses came against Bowling Green, Florida Atlantic, and North Dakota State. I know, those teams aren't necessarily Savannah State, but they're no BCS conference material teams, either. First things first for Brewster is beating their opponents that aren't necessarily as good as they are. Sounds good to me.

But, if there's anything that Minnesota is starting to resemble, it's their conference foe, Illinois. The Fighting Illini were terrible during the first two years of Ron Zook's career but he was able to buy some time by recruiting very well. That is exactly what Tim Brewster has done. But, if there's any hope of winning five or six games for the 2008 season, two things have to happen. First, all of the youth that saw significant time during the end of last year have to mature. Then, the defense needs to see almost night-and-day improvement. To look on the bright side, a defense that ranked 119th in the nation and gave up almost 520 yards a game should only get better with eight starters coming back and a bunch of reserves. Deon Hightower will have to lead by example.



Big 12: Nebraska

Nebraska is the obvious choice if you had to pick a Big 12 team to surprise. Not only should they finally learn how to tackle and be in the right positions under new head coach and defensive guru Bo Pelini, they should be able to take the next step and compete with Missouri and Kansas for the Big 12 North title.

Okay, fine. That might be asking too much, especially with Missouri shaping up to be one of the best teams in the nation next year. But they'll duke it out with Kansas for the number two spot in the division which should be good enough. One of their biggest problems was creating turnovers on defense and the hiring of Pelini should fix that to some extent. There are some big losses on that side of the ball, but it's not the end of the world and these guys should be about 5-3 in Big 12 play at season's end.



C-USA: SMU

June Jones will make his impact felt in Dallas, that is for sure.

As a matter of fact, it's strange, but he's stepping in to a situation that is strikingly similar to that of Hawaii's when he took the job there. It is a school that has potential that struggled. Hawaii was 0-12 when Jones got there and he cleaned up Fred von Appen's mess. Not to mention, the Warriors were WAC co-champions the year he got there.

However, there is a problem and that is the fact that Justin Willis was recently suspended for breaking undisclosed team rules. So, that's never a good thing when the star QB gets into trouble like that. Hopefully he can get back on track with Jones and take over the run-n'-shoot here pretty soon. On a side note, one game I am really looking forward to will be the SMU/Navy game on October 25th. Outside of the 2003 Houston Bowl, I don't believe I have seen (or will have seen) two more diametrically opposed offenses square off against each other.



Independents: Notre Dame

Who are you going to pick? Army? I guess Notre Dame kind of gets this by default.

And, I believe one site already used the emu joke about Jimmy Clausen. I think it was this site, although I can't be sure. And yes, I know, it's already been around the Internet once or twice so I sort of missed the boat on it. But, as a Michigan fan, I find it funny nonetheless.

On a serious note though, Notre Dame should at least find a way to go bowling. I realize that the media, fans, bloggers, and talking heads focus on offense more than defense for whatever reason (I do too), but the obvious question surrounding Notre Dame is solving this offensive ineptitude. It was the worst offense in recent Notre Dame history. There's no disputing it. They could not do anything against Michigan, Georgia Tech, Michigan State, USC, and Penn State. This team lost to Navy for the first time in four decades. They lost to Air Force. They were this close from losing to a sorry Stanford team as well.

But it's not all negative, believe it or not. Even though Trevor Laws and Tom Zbikowski will be heading off to the pros, this is still a solid defensive nucleus that was overshadowed by the offense's horridness. The schedule is considerably lighter compared to last year with games against San Diego State, North Carolina, Washington, Pittsburgh, and Syracuse. These games are winnable along with some other rivalries against Navy and Stanford. Worst-case scenario, we're talking 5-7. There's nowhere to go but up, especially with more experience coming on offense.